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VN Ren'Py [Developing] (Looking for feedback) Survival Dating Sim Game with Building / Crafting mechanics.

Pink Petal

New Member
Jan 29, 2020
5
5
Greetings all,

I'm in the process of developing an erotic game and I'm seeking advice and ideas from those that may end up playing it one day.​
I was hoping to keep information about the game close to my chest until I was ready to release the first demo build but it's proven somewhat difficult to receive feedback and ideas from people when they're in the dark about the general game-play / story that I have in mind.​
As to not give too much information away regarding the story I'm going to make it as generic as I possible can before continue on with the rest of the post.​

Generic intro / start of the game/story :
You wake up to the feeling of water on your back and the sun in your eyes, you're disoriented and a twinge of pain on the back of your head.​
Sitting up your vision blurs and the pain increases, it takes a couple of moments for the pain to subside and your vision to become clear again.​
The sensation of water on your back now apparent as you look out over the sea horizon, the dawning sun now blinding you as your eyes adjust.​
You're confused, disoriented and most of all, have no memory of how you came to be here...​
You wake up on a beach with a head wound, no memory of who you're or how you came to be here. (Head Injury, you never regain your full memory)​
Looking around you see no civilisation in sight, you're alone. (A Island, a big island...)​
You end up meeting other people, unlike you, they remember what happened.​
You were all on a cruise ship going across the Atlantic, over 6,000 people, the winds suddenly changed and a storm appeared as if out of no where.​
Everything happened so quickly, the ship shook violently as the waves crashed against the sides, with each wave that passed a bigger one was behind it, growing in size and force.​
By the time the evacuation sirens sounded it was already too late, the height and power of each wave that stuck the ship had already capsized it.​
No one knows how many survived, all they remember after that is the screams of those in fear as the waves took them...​
It'll be made clear by one of the crew members that survived that the ships instruments started acting strangely a good 22 hours before the storm hit,​
All communications and navigation became unresponsive, the captain tried to stay on course the best he could but with such a heavy overcast using the sun/moon as reference proved difficult.​
The ship would have travelled around 400-500 miles from the last GPS transmission, that along with the chance that they didn't stay on course and how far the waves had taken them...​
If help was searching for them, they may be searching in the wrong area...​

Things to note :
- I do understand how cliche it is, Boat/plane crash, washes you and other people up on a island... very generic.
- The intro or shall I say, how you came to be on the island does need fine tuning.​
- Not everything is as it seems, instruments stop responding, then a freak and sudden storm... something else is going on.​
- The intro will be and feel long, it'll feel like a simple visual novel up until the intro is over, then the game will transform into a open-world style game.​

What happens after the intro?
By the time the intro is over it'll be clear that you are all stranded with little to no sign of rescue finding you, its now time to survive.​
The game will change into a more open-world style of game-play where you'll be free to explore, gather, build, interact, etc as you see fit.​

Features :
- Time
The game will have a 24 hour day cycle which will be broken up into 15-minute intervals.
What I mean by this is : 12.00 -> 12.15 -> 12.30 -> 12.45 -> 13.00
So for example, Character-B could be sleeping at 07.30 and then 15-minutes later they'll be sitting on their makeshift sleeping area waking up.​
I'm planning and hoping to make the world feel very "alive" with each character randomly doing something different for each time slot, more about this below.​
- Making the characters/world feel "alive" rather than static
So that the characters actions don't feel so generic / same routine every day, I'll be adding a randomizer to their actions.​
Don't get me wrong, they'll still have their daily routines, but the time/variation of their actions will change.​
For example :
10.00 - 11.00 [Actions - Washing] - (Washing self at stream) (Washing self under waterfall)​
The randomzier will choose which action they'll take for that period of time, whether they'll wash with a cloth at the steam or use the waterfall.​
It'll then choose which routine of images will be shown for each interval of 15minuts for said event, such as :​
[Washing at stream with a cloth] 1.(Wash face) 2.(Wash legs) 3.(Wash belly) 4.(Wash boobs) 5.(etc)
How does this affect gameplay ?
let's say it's 10.00, the randomizer has chosen for character-b to wash at the steam, you've passed time a little and it's now 10.15,​
The randomizer has now chosen for character-b to wash her boobs, if you click to interact with that character she'll be in the process of washing her boobs.​
You can then either watch her - shows a couple of images of her washing her boobs which will pass time (15minutes)
Or interact with her - "depending on relationship level, will depend on if she gets angry, if she covers herself but talks to you, if she continues but talks to you, or lets you help.​
- Shelters/Camps + Building?
The shelter/location you find in the intro will be your main "base" per-say...​
Before I continue I should note that the first group of survives your find are not the only survives on the island.​
The island is very big and survivors have washed up all over the place, they have been surviving themselves, they already have places they call "home".​
So for example, lets say you travel to the far north of the island, you may find a group of 3-5 people, you interact, tell your story and hear theirs and get to know them.​
You can then offer to help them which will vary from : gathering food, water, resources, etc. (Possible quests, my dog was with us, have you seen him?)​
Once they've gotten to know you more and trust you, you can then ask them if it'll be okay set up camp with them, opening up actions like, creating a sleeping spot, eating food, etc.​
Basically opening types of "outposts" you can visit to eat, drink, sleep, interact etc.​
These "outposts" will have the same things as your main "base", characters doing their own actions, abilities to interact while they're doing certain actions etc.
Once you've opened up the ability to sleep at their camp you'll then have the ability to build at their camp.​
- Building / Upgrading?
The building / upgrading in the game will be pretty streamlined when it comes to what you can/can't build in certain camps and where you can/can't build it.
For example, your main camp :​
There is a little steam that comes out of the mountains, "I do mean little, you can step over it" you can wash in it with a cloth but it's not big enough for anything.
You'll have the option to place a bunch of clay and rocks where the water comes out creating a type of dam, the water will then fall from the top of it, creating a mini waterfall.​
Which then opens up the option for you and the others at your camp to take showers. (This will be in the intro, type of building tutorial if you will).​
Each camp will have it's own things that need building to help with every day life :​
Cosmetic - Maybe a character likes flowers, so you build a little clay flower pot for them. (besides raising said characters affection, it does nothing besides look nice)
Actions - Building things such as the above mini water fall, opens up the ability for showers for you and others.
Resources - Building a garden, allows your camp to produce food.
Lights - Torches around camp to make things brighter at night.
Work Stations - example : Skinning/Cutting bench = more meat from game that you or your survivors have hunted.​
Crafting Bench - Allows your to create and improve tools you have created.​
What about upgrading what you've built?​
For example, the mini waterfall shower, people won't want to strip totally naked when they have no privacy so why not upgrade it and add a makeshift barrier out of wood!​
This will then have survivors strip totally naked when showering.​
- Resources
Ah yes, the grind...​
A quick note : the resource pool for all camps will be joined, so for instance one camp has access to clay, once they trust you enough and you have joined them, clay will now be available for you to use at any camp to build, give or craft with.​
The way I'm planning to alleviate the grind factor when it comes to resources is by having the people at your camp and the other camps you come across spend a portion of their day gathering/working. "I for one hate it when you the player seem to be the one doing all the heavy lifting while everyone else is relaxing"​
So for example : your main base, you'll have someone that spends 4-6 hours gathering wood each day.
They'll gather the minimum requirement for the camp to survive and then a random amount extra for other uses.​
By survive I mean you need firewood for night, lets say you use 8 wood each night, they'll gather 8 wood minimum.​
Then the randomizer will add on a little extra "for your use to build, craft etc"​
This will start small to begin with, lets say between 2-4 extra, but if you're able to build a makeshift saw and give it to the person gathering wood, this will change to 4-8.​
The same principle above will go for the other main resources, they'll collect the minimum requirement for the camp and then a bit extra.
You can then craft / build things that help them with these tasks that will increase the amount gained each day.​
Or, if you really need extra wood for some reason you can go out spend some time collecting it yourself, if you do it at the same time as another person you'll gain more along with relationship points.​
- What about Clothing and unique items?
This is something I'm still working out....​
My first thought is that each day there is a chance that 0-1 suitcases will wash up on the beach, a cruise ship can carry 6,000+ passengers, that is 6,000 suitcases.​
Yes, 100% logically not all of them are going to "magically get out" of the ship when it sunk but... it's an idea "more on this further below when I talk about niches"​
Yes, if the player plays the game for more than 600 days... maybe the chances of suitcases washing up become a lot rarer.​
So having it as a standard game mechanic that each day you can walk down to the beach and possibly find 0-1 suitcases is somewhat possible.​
This will allow the player to find items such as medical supplies, clothing, toiletry bags "shampoo, soap, razors for those that like a clean shave"​
This will also allow me to add a type of "loot box" mechanic, whow! hold on! it's not what you think, it'll be free! calm yourself.​
What I mean by loot box mechanic is that feeling you get when opening something, that chance you'll get something really rare or something common.​
Common - Sunscreen, clothing, etc
Un-common - Medical supplies, Toiletry Bags, etc
Rare - Someone packed a dildo (Opening up certain events with certain characters)​
This mechanic would just be for those things that would be somewhat difficult / impossible to make on the island.​
Quick Note : What about phones, laptops, etc?
The events of this game take place before things became somewhat waterproof, meaning all electrical devices are ruined as they have gotten wet.​
Regarding character clothing :
This... this is going to have to be one of those details that are overlooked I'm afraid to say.​
As much as I would love to have characters change their clothing each day, the practicality of this when it comes to the amount of time and images that would be needed for each event and variation would be enormous!​
Not mentioning how much it would cost to buy so many clothing assets...​
So what I'm planning to do is to have 2 clothing sets they alternate between each day.​
Day 1 - Clothing set 1 (Clothing set 2 are being washed / dried)
Day 2 - Clothing set 2 (Clothing set 1 are being washed / dried)​
These are just their generic every day clothes.​
The clothing you find in the suitcases will be things like Bikini's, Special occasion dresses or Underwear.​
So for example :
Bikini's given to survivors will open up an event in their free-time period in which they'll be at the beach, sunbathing.​
Underwear given to survivors will change what they sleep in at night "if you want to be a creep at peep on them at night or when they're changing"​
Special Occasion Dresses given to survivors will open up special date events, maybe a picnic on the beach, etc etc.​
- Characters / Relationships / etc
I'm planning on having a wide range of characters, Young-Old, Slim-Chubby, and a somewhat diverse race pool. "Caucasion, Afican, Asian, etc"​
Yes, I am planning on having Female and Male characters along with one female character having both genitalia. "this will come under niches further down, totally optional"​
Please note : (Male on Male will not be in the game)​
Due to having Male and Female survivors I can already foresee the NTR comments, I'm going to put your minds at rest right now, no one is going to steal your interests nor is there going to be any time-limits or events that will make you "loose" someone to someone else.​
Yes, there will be some couples that survived : (A Married Woman and Man) (A young couple in love Woman and Man) (A Woman and Woman in love)​
Yes, you can peep on them doing stuff, but it'll be totally optional and you'll be warned before you see anything, the choice will be yours.​
Yes, you can try and seduce the females into cheating and eventually breaking up with their partners.​
Yes, they will continue doing stuff with their partners while you're trying to conceive them to cheat / leave them.​
No, once you have convinced them to leave their partners you do not have to worry about loosing them to their partners or anyone else.​
You will be doing the stealing, no one else.​
Once you meet one of these characters that are already in a relationship with someone else a warning will appear when interacting with them for the first time, making it clear to you that their content resolves around another love interest being involved, it'll then be up to you if you proceed with said character or totally ignore them.​
Now, onto Relationships, there will be no events / choices that will lock you out of a characters Story-line / Progression.​
Yes, there will be choices that make a character upset with you, such as getting caught peeking on them, they'll ignore you for a few days, then you'll have the option to apologise and go back to normal.​
But in terms of them getting so angry at you that they'll never want to talk to you again or being locked out of certain events, this will not happen, there will always be a way to get back in their good books.​
In terms of "cheating" on your interests and if others will find out, again, you do not need to worry about this.​
Okay.. I'm going to have to spoil a little bit of the story here so it makes sense... up to you if you want to read the spoiler.​
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- Relationship Points / Progression
I'll be honest, I haven't fully worked out how all this will work yet, there will be grind yes, but not in the repetitive doing the same action over and over again kind of way.​
The general helping around the camps, talking to people, etc will boost peoples relationship towards you.​
Once they reach a certain amount of points you'll have to do something for them or with them to push your relationship to the next stage.​
Once reaching the next stage the relationship points with them will start to increase again until you hit the next stage resulting in the same thing.​
I haven't worked out how many stages but it'll be something like 0-1000 points.​
100 points needed to hit stage 1
Stage 1 (they no longer get angry if you catch/interrupt them washing / changing)
200 points needed to hit stage 2
Stage 2 (they no longer tell you to leave when you catch/interrupt them washing / changing, they will still cover themselves though)​
300 points needed to hit stage 3​
Stage 3 (they no longer care about you being around when washing / changing, allowing you to look at them)
etc etc​
The event that you can trigger when they reach the required relationship points will be unique to said character and their story-line.​
These "stages" is how you'll progress their story-line along with learn new things about them.​
Some events may require you to have found a certain location, built a certain structure, found a specific item.​
- Exploration
I'm still working out the mechanics for this but the general principle is simple.​
You need supplies to explore IE : Food, Water, etc.​
Depending on how much food, water, etc you have will depend on how far you can explore from the current camp you're at.​
You can only find one location each time you explore so if you use 2 food / 2 water to explore and end up find nothing, this means you've found all locations for said radius.
You'll then need to use 3 food / 3 water. (5 maximum)​
What you can find may be places with unique resources, hunting locations, places of interest, other camps.​
Once you find another camp, you can then start searching from that location, doing the same thing "yes, this part will be repetitive"​
If you find a place with a unique resource it'll then be added to the closest camp, meaning that during the "working hours" the randomzior may send one of your survivors their to gather that resource which may result in opening up new events with said character at said location.​
Once a place has been found "unlocked" you'll be able to fast travel there "using up time to travel there, but not resources"​
You'll also come across strange areas and places when exploring, these areas/places will subtly explain and expand on the main story of how you came to be on the island.​
- Survival, so the MC has needs ?
Yes, and no.​
Like I said before, the last thing I want is to create game with a bunch of mindless npc's that can't care for themselves.​
If you wanted, you can sit back, relax and skip several days without lifting a finger, doing so will not end in a game-over screen, however you will be punished.​
You'll be aloud to skip one day without helping your camp without suffering any negative affects.​
However if you skip 2 days all of the survivors at your camp "and the other camps you have unlocked" will loose -5 relationship points.​
For every day you skip after this that relationship point de-buff will double.​
1 day of not helping = -0
2 days of not helping = -5​
3 days of not helping = -10​
4 days of not helping = -20​
5 days of not helping = -40​
Note, you will not loose stages with a character though.​
For example : if you have progressed a character to stage 4, you'll only loose points for that stage, they will not go back down to stage 3.​
Helping at other camps will also count as helping at your main camp so there will be no need to worry about rushing back to your main camp to help out for the day.​
You're all in this together trying to survive on the island.​
"Think of it as a word of mouth type of thing, if you're lazy in one camp, the others will hear about it and vise versa"​
In terms of you needing to sleep, eat, drink and wash...
This is up for debate and will depend on feedback.​
It'll be pretty simple to add a hands on need mechanic which forces you to actually sleep, eat, drink and wash.​
But for simplicity and less grind, I'm leaning more along the lines of leaving it to the player to do these actions and not punishing them for it if they don't.​
As doing said actions will have their own rewards.​
Such as :
If a survivor is having breakfast, you can interact with them and join them. "Raises the survivors relationship with the MC and gives the impression MC is eating/drinking"​
If the player clicks to have a shower it'll be a generic shower event, but if the has gotten a character up to a certain stage, there is a chance said character will join them.​
As for sleeping... well, there really isn't much to do at night "besides the obvious with characters" so sleeping is the best way to skip time.​
Feedback on the MC having an actual needs system would be welcome.​
But keep in mind, it'll only be one way or the other, no "toggling it on or off"​
- Confirmed Niches / Optional Niches / Refused Niches.
Before I write a generic list of niches that I plan on adding along with what will be optional / not optional I just wanted to clear up the "Fantasy" niche below.​
Fantasy
You may have already guessed from what I mentioned above that the game and story will have some fantasy/mysterious elements to it.​
These elements however will be handled with care when implemented into the game and beside a portion of the main-story line this side content can be totally ignored.​
It's hard to explain exactly what I mean by this without giving too much away, but what I can tell you is that the island has a very long and rich history which has been for the most part undisturbed by the outside world.​
You may come across things like :
1. Ancient ruins with dark secrets and rituals.
2. A ghost that needs help releasing their burden.
3. Recent science experiments which ended badly resulting in the expedition team vanishing.
4. Tribes that have been living in peace for as long as they can remember.
5. Nature itself which can be interacted with under the right circumstances.
6. And much more...​
All in all, I'm trying to create a setting in which I can add certain content types which are somewhat plausible and can be explained.​
I will not however be adding a magical god/demon being that appears to you in a dream granting you magical powers to which you're free to use at will...​
This will not be that type of fantasy game, this type of content will be handled and implemented with care and with somewhat "scientific" plausibility.​
Okay, now onto the rest of the list.​
Yes List
  • 3DCG
  • Animated
  • Adventure / Exploration
  • Combat : - Hunting for food
  • Sexual : - Vaginal, Anal, Titfuck, etc, "It'll be a wide range"
  • Dating Sim - Yes, you'll need to seduce people, not ask them their name and then instantly take them to bed.
  • Romance : - Yes, you'll need to seduce people, not ask them their name and then instantly take them to bed.
Optional :
  • Futa : - 1x female character with both sexual organs
  • Pregnant / Lactation : - 1x pregnant woman
  • Lesbian : - 1x female couple in love
  • Drugs : - Tribal's
  • Masturbation : - You can masturbate or watch those doing it
  • Necrophilia : - Think more along the lines of a zombie rather than feeling up a dead corpse...
  • Paranormal : - Ghosts
  • Urination : - It'll be obvious by the game-play when someone is about to pee, it's your choice to stay and watch.
  • Voyeurism : - A big part of the game will be having the ability to interact with people, even when they wish for privacy, again, it's your choice.
  • Cheating / NTR : - Refer to the = (Characters / Relationships / etc) section above.
  • Incest : - Mother, Sister, Aunt, Grandma so many possibilities.
Undecided List :
  • Bestiality : - It's a possibility, but will be totally optional and if implemented will only involve 1 female character and a dog.
  • Blackmail : - If implemented, it'll be tame, no crying or borderline rape.
  • Corruption : - Romance, Corruption... is there really much of a difference? besides magical potions or spells.
  • Twins : - I do have an idea about adding twins, separated at the start with the ability to reunite them.
No List :
  • Furry
  • Gay
  • Loli
  • Mind Control
  • Possesion
  • Rape
  • Sisification
  • Scat
  • Superpowers
  • Slave
  • Sleep Sex
  • Watersports

Game Engine / Images / Animations :
  • Images : (Daz3d) [4k resolution] [Wepb]
  • Engine : Ren'py
  • Animations : (Daz3d) (Smooth Image based)
Feed Back :

I think that about does it for everything I have planned, I've spent the past several months working everything out and writing the general base story-line.​
I'm now in the process of rendering the intro images (Currently on image 105) while setting up the environment scenes, creating characters, playing around with how I'd like the UI and game mechanics to look and feel.​
So I'm now looking for feedback from people that are interested, things like :
1. What you'd like to see implemented.
2. What you don't want to see implemented.
3. Little details other developers miss which you feel make a game better.​
4. Whether a gallery option should be implemented at the start of the game.​
Etc etc, any feedback is good feedback.​
Thank you for your time and making it to the end of this now very long post.​
 

eosar

Active Member
Aug 11, 2016
844
1,180
Yeah, sure, why not. Get a demo going and more people will flock to it. Nobody likes the theory of sex, but everyone likes the practical test.